Artemis II set to blast off to the moon with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen

#Canadians gathering at museums, libraries to watch Artemis II moon launch, The first two-hour launch window opens at 6:24 p.m. ET, with a six-day launch window running through April 6.

People across #Canada are gathering at historical sites, museums, libraries and arts centres to watch the launch.

In Vancouver, people are meeting at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, while Halifax residents plan to watch the launch from the Discovery Centre.

If there are no problems today, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen of London, Ont., will serve as the mission specialist for Artemis II and become the first non-American to travel beyond low Earth orbit.

The nearly 10-day mission will take the astronauts to the moon and back but won’t land them on the lunar surface.

How #NASA’s Artemis II moon mission will unfold

NASA’s Artemis II mission is expected to last about 10 days, sending four astronauts on a high-speed journey around the moon and back in the first crewed lunar mission since the Apollo era. Artemis II is designed to pave the way for future missions aimed at returning astronauts to the lunar surface later this decade.

Here is a day-by-day outline of how the flight is expected to proceed.
Launch day

Artemis II is scheduled to lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the Space Launch System, the most powerful rocket the agency has ever flown. NASA has said the launch window opens on April 1, with multiple backup opportunities available over the following days depending on weather, technical readiness and range availability. After launch, the Orion crew capsule will separate from the rocket’s upper stage and enter a highly elliptical orbit around Earth.
Days 1–2: Earth orbit checkouts

The crew will spend the first one to two days in high Earth orbit conducting extensive systems checks. These include testing Orion’s life-support, propulsion, navigation and communications systems to ensure the spacecraft is ready to head into deep space.
Translunar injection

Once checkouts are complete, Orion’s propulsion system will perform a critical engine burn known as translunar injection, sending the spacecraft out of Earth orbit and onto a trajectory toward the moon.
Days 3–4: Coast to the Moon

During the several-day transit to the moon, astronauts will continue monitoring spacecraft systems en route to operating farther from Earth than any previous human spaceflight. Mission controllers will track communications and navigation performance as Orion travels deep into space.
Moon flyby

Orion will pass behind the Moon on a “free-return” trajectory — a path that naturally swings the spacecraft back toward Earth without requiring additional propulsion. The spacecraft will reach its greatest distance from Earth during this phase.
Days 5–8: Return to Earth

After the lunar flyby, the crew will spend several days heading home while conducting additional deep-space tests, including evaluations of power systems, thermal controls and crew operations far beyond low Earth orbit.
Re-entry and splashdown

As Orion approaches Earth, it will separate key components before plunging into the atmosphere at speeds of about 25,000 miles per hour (40,233 km/h). Testing the capsule’s heat shield during high-energy re-entry is one of the mission’s primary objectives. The spacecraft is expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean, where recovery teams will retrieve the crew.

(Reporting by Joe Brock, Editing by Bill Berkrot)

#NASA #astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, are set to launch from Kennedy Space Center as soon as April 1 aboard NASA’s towering Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, riding inside an Orion crew capsule built to carry humans into deep space. The roughly 10-day mission will send the crew on a high-speed loop around the moon and back.

Boeing is the prime contractor for the SLS core ​stage, Northrop Grumman builds ​the rocket’s solid-fuel boosters, and Lockheed Martin produces the Orion spacecraft.

Artemis II will ‌be the first crewed mission ⁠of NASA’s multibillion-dollar Artemis program. While it will not attempt a moon landing, it will send astronauts farther from Earth than any previous human spaceflight, testing the Orion spacecraft’s life-support systems, navigation, communications and heat shield performance.

The crew has spent more than two years training for the mission since being named in 2023. They have been in standard preflight quarantine at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston since March 18 and are ⁠scheduled to move into NASA’s Astronaut Crew Quarters in Florida ahead of launch.

Glover, the mission’s pilot, will become the first Black astronaut to travel into the moon’s vicinity. Koch will be the first woman to do so, while Hansen will be the first non-American astronaut to go beyond low-Earth orbit toward ⁠the moon.

All of the crew members except Hansen have previously been in space. Wiseman, the mission commander, told reporters last year that the crew were prepared for all eventualities.

“When we get off the planet, we might come right back home, we might spend three or four days around Earth, we might go to the moon - that’s where ​we want to go," Wiseman said. “But it is a test mission, and we’re ready for every scenario.”

NASA’s Artemis astronauts enter final preparations for moon mission

Lost in space: #Sperm struggles to navigate during weightless sex.

Some particularly resilient sperm still made it through the course, suggesting that conceiving children in space will still be possible, according to research published on Thursday.

However a bigger problem could be that the development of embryos after fertilisation was harmed by a lack of gravity, the Australian team of researchers found.

With humanity setting its eyes on colonising space - next week NASA hopes to launch its first crewed mission around the Moon in half a century - scientists have been studying how difficult it will be to procreate on spaceships or other worlds.

One of the biggest challenges is that sperm will no longer be pulled downwards by Earth’s gravity.

“Sperm need to actively find their way to an egg, and this study is the first to put that ability to the test under space-like conditions,” Nicole McPherson, a researcher at Adelaide University in Australia, told AFP.

The scientists used a plastic chamber that resembles the female reproductive tract to act as a “miniature obstacle course”, the senior author of the new study said.

“Think of it as a tiny race track... sperm are introduced at one end and have to swim their way through to the other.”
Filtering out weak runners

Both human and mice sperm were sent down the course, which was inside a device that uses constant rotation to simulate the microgravity of space.

The sperm was about 50 per cent worse at navigating through the course compared to how they perform under Earth’s gravity.

This worked out to be roughly a 30 per cent drop in successful fertilisation, according to the study in the journal Communications Biology.

However the sperm that did make it through seemed to produce better-quality embryos, which could turn out to be “beneficial”, McPherson said.

It appeared that the stress of microgravity acted as a “filter” that effectively cleared the field, “leaving only the most capable sperm in the running,” she explained.

A bigger problem came in the first 24 hours after sperm had fertilised the eggs.

“The results reversed sharply, with fewer embryos formed, and those that did were of poorer quality,” McPherson said.

This suggests that microgravity “may not be the deal-breaker we feared, but protecting the embryo from weightlessness in those critical first hours will likely be essential for reproduction in space,” she added.

Some including billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk have ambitious plans to make humans an interplanetary species by establishing settlements on the Moon then Mars.

There has also been speculation that the first baby conceived outside the bounds of Earth could be the result of a couple having sex on a flight launched by the booming space tourism industry.

McPherson emphasised that much more research is needed to understand how reproduction works in space, adding that fertilisation is “only one small piece of a very long and complex puzzle”.

“We are still a long way from seeing the first space baby.”

WASHINGTON — #NASA is halting plans to develop the lunar Gateway and instead focusing on the development of a lunar base.

China’s Astronstone raises $29 million for reusable rocket with chopstick-style recovery

#KOROLYOV /Moscow Region - March 22 - #TASS - A Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with the Progress MS-33 resupply ship successfully lifted off from the Baikonur spaceport towards the International Space Station (ISS), a TASS correspondent reported from Russia’s Flight Control Center.

In about nine minutes after the lift-off, the Progress MS-33 resupply ship separated from the upper stage of the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket and entered the designated orbit.

It will take the resupply ship about 49.5 hours to approach the orbital outpost. Its docking with the Poisk module of the Russian segment of the International Space Station is expected at 4:35 p.m. Moscow time (1:35 p.m. GMT) on March 24.

The Progress MS-33 resupply ship will deliver 2,509 kg of useful cargo to the ISS, including 1,211 kg of dry cargo for the ISS Expedition 74 crew and the space station’s systems, in particular, equipment for the Sun-Terahertz scientific experiment, 828 kg of propellant for the station’s refueling, 420 liters of potable water for cosmonauts and 50 kg of oxygen to replenish the ISS atmosphere, it said.

The Progress MS is a Russian automatic spacecraft designed to service orbital stations, deliver various cargo to the International Space Station (propellant, scientific equipment, oxygen, potable water, food and other supplies) and adjust its orbit.

Years of training keep Artemis II crew mission-ready, researcher says.

“They’ve been preparing for years, so what is a few more months,” said Dr. Farhan Asrar, a physician, space medicine researcher and associate dean at Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Medicine.

“One thing that I’ve always kind of appreciated and respected in the life of astronauts … is it’s always expecting the unexpected and how do you best prepare for that?”

NASA has targeted an April 1 launch for Artemis II, with six-day launch window running through April 6 announced last week.

Hansen, 50, of London, Ont., will serve as mission specialist during Artemis II, becoming the first non-American to travel beyond low Earth orbit, a historic achievement for Canada. His crewmates are veteran NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch. The mission is scheduled to last 10 days.

Apart from Hansen, fellow Canadian astronaut Jenni Gibbons, 37, of Calgary is also serving as Hansen’s backup and will be supporting the crew from ground control.

The mission has been delayed a few times since an intended February launch window opening due to a hydrogen fuel leaks and helium flow problems with the Space Launch System rocket.

But Asrar notes that delays are part of the game and the astronauts have been on a multi-year program that includes physical training, technical simulations and scenarios of what could happen during the mission.

So physically they are always ready, but there are other aspects, such as team-building, getting to know each other and carving out personal time with families.

“It’s just basically continuing that same process in order to be prepared for eventually once that mission day comes in,” Asrar said.

While the lunar mission is only 10 days, Asrar said one of the interesting things about the Artemis II mission from a health perspective is the four astronauts will be confined to the Orion capsule, which is about the size of a camper van.

“The crews must really get along with each other, know each other really well, because interestingly, with the exception of the bathroom, there is no other privacy or door that is separated,” Asrar said.

“So they’ll be eating, drinking, working, even their own personal time and reflection or self-reflection times would be with everybody around you though as well.”

For a possible April 1 launch, NASA said pre-launch quarantine for the crew would begin around March 18 before they travel to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 27.

Artemis II is also historic in that it moves thinking toward long duration deep space missions. Asrar’s research looks at human health in space, which includes deep space missions.

“It is opening the doors to basically now looking at living on the moon for longer periods, and then are we also then looking toward the Mars space missions,” he said.

For those long distance missions, considerations include how to deliver care when there isn’t an easy way to connect with Earth, as is the case with the International Space Station.

In the event of a medical emergency, as occurred recently with the Crew-11 mission that was cut short in January, there was a quick return to Earth in NASA’s first ever medical evacuation.

“However, when you look at, let’s say for example, Mars, it might take us close to seven to 10 months to just travel one way,” Asrar said. That raises the question of whether crews can handle all medical issues from assessment to recovery. There is also the issue how to handle limited medical supplies.

#Artemis II, Asrar says, will provide more insight about how to answer some of those questions.

Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press